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T’was the DAY before Christmas, when all through the woods,
Not a creature was stirring, all asleep like they should.
The skidders were parked on the landing with care,
In hopes that their operators soon would be there.

The cutters were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of tall timber danced in their heads.
I kissed Ma in her kerchief, and donned my skullcap
Then headed to the jobsite, and not for a nap!

When I arrived on the landing, there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my cab to see what was the matter!
Away to the hardwood, I flew like a flash.
Then I turned on a dime, and fell onto my Ash.

The sun on the crest of the new-fallen snow,
Made me feel I was dreaming with nowhere to go,
When all of a sudden what should I see,
A right jolly old elf peering out from a tree!

They say “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” which means a logging contractor may have the best business strategy in the world, but if the culture is weak or corrupt, it can destroy strategy in a heartbeat. So, if you have a low bar for what your business stands for, or how employees interact on the job, most certainly your crews are not producing at their maximum potential.

Leaders in the woods should not leave culture to chance. Company culture is more important now than ever. Focusing on culture can improve business relations inside and outside of your business. From the inside, if you put culture first, it will have a positive impact on morale, production, communication and turnover. From the outside, a strong balanced culture can attract the best operators and support staff into your business.

Culture is important in any type of business, but for those who work to move the wood, it’s more important than ever. A strong ethical culture can help set the bar for how the public views the industry we love, which always seems to be under a tightly focused microscope.

What Is Culture?

The culture of a company usually reflects the owner’s ideas for what he or she sees their company standing for. Stated in the values the company wants to uphold and reinforced by the mission statement, a company’s culture lets the world know how they will be conducting business. It’s often considered a company’s personality. Culture can propel a business forward, or hold a business back from reaching its maximum potential. It’s another one of those intangible things that consists of elements invisible to the human eye. So yes, in the woods your crew has a culture, and if you haven’t been paying attention to that culture, it may be working against your business strategy.

Culture sets the standard for how employees interact with each other. A culture where crew members feel criticized can breed secrecy. When dealing with expensive equipment and extremely dangerous situations the last thing you want in the woods is secrecy. So in the logging industry a company’s culture may eat strategy for breakfast, right after it devours your employees for a midnight snack. Respect for safety is one element to building a strong culture within a logging company.

Looking for a skidder, loader, cutter, sawhead, processor, chipper, mulcher or delimber? Considering a different tire brand? In the market for a truck, trailer or lowboy? Shopping for insurance? Interested in a loader or skidder contest or continuing education opportunities? Want to help support Log-A-Load for Kids? Hungering for some of the South’s best fried catfish and fixings? Want a shot at winning two $1,000 cash drawings? Craving for some entertainment? Looking for activities to entertain the kids? Want to buy a unique carving made by a chain saw artist? Interested in getting the autograph of Swamp Logger Bobby Goodson?

You’ll find all these opportunities and more at the 16th biennial Mid-South Forestry Equipment Show, set for September 21-22 at Mississippi State University’s John W. Starr Memorial Forest and Charles E. Burkhardt Pavilion & Site near Starkville, Mississippi (state highway 25 south). Most of these opportunities are available for the low $25 admission that’s good for both days. Spouses not business-active and children under 18 do not have to pay but are required to register.

Since its founding in the early ‘80s, the family-friendly event has become the South’s most popular live/static forest-focused venue, thanks to its blend of the latest equipment, technology and services; continuing education sessions for loggers and foresters; crucial support from Mississippi State University; cash door prizes; various contests; children’s activities; delicious meals prepared on site (Saturday); and tie-in meeting of the Mississippi Loggers Assn. (Friday night).

Approximately 90 exhibitors will demonstrate or display some 130 product brands and types of services, while overall two-day attendance is expected to again approach 7,000, according to Misty Booth, Show Manager.

Mid-South will again offer continuing education tent and field classes for loggers and foresters. Loggers can earn up to 11 hours in category 1 by participating and can receive up to six hours of category 2 credit (3 hours each day) simply by attending the show. Foresters can earn up to 9 hours in category I-CF. All sessions begin each day at 9 a.m. and change on the hour. More information will be available at the show registration area.

The new Phloem mobile app allows loggers to track loads of timber from the woods to the mills, provide wait times at mill scale houses and allow users to report any issues encountered at mills. Developed by Savannah, Ga.-based forester and 30-year industry veteran Dean McCraw, Phloem (pronounced flow-um) is a community-based app that allows for real-time tracking and information sharing.

“Truck drivers can use Phloem to know what’s happening at the mills in real time and they can avoid problem areas,” McCraw says. He also hopes to combat timber theft by eliminating double weighing or falsifying timber origin information. Within the app, data is attached to the origin point of timber and with only one set of data per load there’s no way to forge multiple records or data.

Phloem is designed as a community app, allowing users to share real time information on the mills they utilize. It works best when more people are part of the community, feeding the app with information about turnaround times and mill delays that is then shared with the rest of the community. (This is similar to the Gas Buddy app that helps people find the lowest-price gas stations based on information provided by other users in the app’s community.)

A truck driver (or loader operator, foreman, company owner, etc.) selects the mills they deliver to, essentially signing up for alerts about those mills from others who deliver there as well. You can then select which mill you’re planning to haul a load before the truck ever leaves the woods. Even if you’re deep in the woods and your phone has no cellular service, the app stores the information until the phone connects. You can then put the smart phone away—no phone use while driving—because Phloem will track the trip to the mill and detect when the driver reaches the scales. The app then automatically starts keeping track of the turnaround time, ending once the truck returns to the scales. “At no time does the app require user input while the truck is in motion,” McCraw says. Even if the mill is holding trucks outside the scales, the app will detect it from within a set distance and will ask the driver if he (or she) is waiting. The driver indicates yes, and it starts calculating turnaround time from that point (but only if GPS tells the app that it is close to the scale house for a period of time, so no one can really lie about it).

By: Danny Dructor, Executive Vice President of the American Loggers Council

About once a year we like to remind loggers and log haulers why they should, if not already, be involved with a state and/or regional association representing loggers and log haulers. Perhaps the biggest reason can be found in the question, “If loggers are not representing the best interests of the timber harvesting profession, then who is?”

When you step back and look at some of the benefits that state and regional associations have worked on with regard to the political and working landscapes, you can’t help but wonder where our industry might be if you did not have these organizations working for you.

Let’s start with an issue that brought many of our associations together, worker’s compensation insurance. Many state associations have successfully petitioned their state insurance boards to create a tiered structure for logging insurance rates based on mechanized versus non-mechanized operations.

Let’s talk about truck weights. Many state and regional associations have experienced an increase in gross truck weights on state and county roads as a direct result of having their associations lobby their respective legislative bodies to allow tolerances above the 80,000 pound gross weight limit found on Interstates. Why? Simply because raw forest products are an agriculture commodity subject to many variances in weight, both physical and weather related.

Team Safe Trucking has been working on developing a Forestry Transportation Training Program for Forestry Transportation professionals since 2015. This year the organization has hired Miranda Gowell, a Safety Director from Maine. Miranda has been working on the development of a curriculum alongside Jeremiah O’Donovan, Team Safe Trucking’s Executive Director and the Team Safe Trucking Executive Committee: Mike Macedo, Danny Dructor, Joanne Reese, Keith Biggs, Jimmie Locklear, John Lemire, Scott Barrett, Richard Meyer, Richard Schwab.

Jeremiah O’Donovan recently announced that the Team Safe training curriculum has been developed with three tracks for the online training: Forestry Transportation Owners (FTO), Forestry Transportation Drivers (FTD) and Forestry Transportation Safety Professionals (FTSP). The curriculum includes 30 class offerings and each class covers a specific topic. The classes will range in length from 15-30 minutes. Each training track will be approximately six to seven hours of forestry transportation industry training. After completing each class, a certificate will be issued to the student for that topic. There will be quizzes following each training class, which can be downloaded and saved to document the student’s completion of the training session. When Owners, Drivers and Safety Professionals complete their training tracks, they will receive a picture ID card certifying the individual as either FTO, FTD or FTSP.

Team Safe Trucking’s online training platform has the unique capacity to store and print each student training records at any time after completion of a class. Prospective employers can pay an annual due to Team Safe Trucking to have access to training records. Prospective employers may request training records from Team Safe for prospective drivers.